Fatally powerful as religious systems have been, human nature is stronger and wider, and though dogmas may hamper they cannot absolutely repress its growth.

We are all of us imaginative in some form or other, for images are the brood of desire.

It had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid.

I don't mind how many letters I receive from one who interests me as much as you do. The receptive part of correspondence I can carry on with much alacrity. It is writing answers that I groan over.

... when one's outward lot is perfect, the sense of inward imperfection is the more pressing.

To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern, that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment is but a hand playing with finely-ordered variety on the chords of emotion--a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge.

I trust you as holy men trust God; you could do nought that was not pure and loving, though the deed might pierce me unto death.